In a cluster environment, multiple nodes may communicate with an external internet protocol (IP) address. In order to communicate to an external IP, a node in the cluster should be able to resolve the MAC address corresponding to an external IP using address resolution protocol (ARP). External devices may want to communicate to the cluster using the same IP address or each node in the cluster may source connections using the same IP address. Managing and coordinating the use of the same IP address by multiple nodes in a cluster is challenging.